Professor Liu works as the vice dean of the School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing. He also serves as the director of Chinese Ceramic Society, and executive director of the branch association of solid wastes, Chinese Ceramic Society.

His research focuses on the reuse of solid wastes, new ecological building materials and the elements extraction in solid wastes. Specifically, his study includes the preparation of ecological building materials and high value added materials by using red mud, coal gangue, steel slag, tailings, fly ash, blast furnace slag, electrolytic manganese slag and other industrial solid wastes, and the elements extraction in solid wastes.

He has been responsible for or participate in more than 30 government research projects, and completed more than 10 enterprise projects as the PI. He has published more than 100 papers in Journal of Hazardous Materials, Journal of Cleaner Production, Resources Conservation and Recycling, Cement and Concrete Research, Concrete and Building Materials, Waste Management and Research etc. Additionally, He has applied 37 Chinese national invention patents and 16 of them have been authorized.